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Under the Radar?: “Black Dynamite”

“Black Dynamite” came out a couple of years ago (’09), and has earned a great reputation for itself. But this is one of the great comedies of the last decade, and anything less than being recognized as such qualifies it as “Under the Radar” to me.

When his brother is killed by drug dealers, Black Dynamite goes after revenge in a way that only HE can. Cleaning up the streets, kickin’ ass with Kung Fu, and makin’ time for the ladies.

The world of Black Dynamite is populated by characters with names such as “Cream Corn”, “Chicago Wind”, and “Chocolate Giddy-Up”. He himself never goes by anything other than “Black Dynamite”. Everyone dresses so Pimp that the only way to actually pick out the pimps is that they’re the ones with the walking sticks. This movie has more Lincolns than a Ford dealership.

Check out some of this dialogue, sucka!

“Ain’t nothin’ in the world get Black Dynamite more mad than some jive ass sucka dealin’ smack to the kids!”

“Hey lil’ mama, it may be bigger than you, and it may be bigger than me, but it ain’t bigger than you AND me, can you dig it?”

“Listen sucka, I’m blacker than the ace of spades and more militant than you and your whole damn army put together.”

This movie parodies the filmmaking style of the “Blaxploitation” era with such a mastery it can only be described as genius. The camera angles, the bad editing, stock footage, the sloppy takes, in frame boom mikes, poor sound mixing, the fight choreography… everything about this movie’s production values is a spoof on the production values of those films. The music is laden with rapid fire cymbal drumming and flange guitars. Every punch is delivered with an accompanying whip crack sound effect.

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15 thoughts on “Under the Radar?: “Black Dynamite””

I watchted this while getting my last tattoo. How funny was this flick? Characters named “Cream Corn” and “Tasty Freeze”. Loved it. And you are right Fogs, hilarious from start to finish. “First Lady, I’m sorry I pimp-slapped you into that china cabinet. I used excessive force. Oftentimes, I cross the line, but I try to do so in the name of what’s right. Most of the time, the ends justifies the means. But in this case, I feel like I betrayed my own code of ethics. And for that, sugar, I apologize.

I had a hard time with this one, mostly because Sanders isn’t interested in making a genuine blaxploitation movie as much as he is in trying to evoke a bygone period. It’s a nostalgia picture, pure and simple, and I think Sanders “gets” the genre he’s aping but he doesn’t “tell a story” or “have anything interesting to say”, either. It’s not a bust, but it’s not that great, either; it’s too busy winking and nudging to work as a movie.

Pretty good movie. The jokes were funny, but it still managed to drag by the end. I think the problem was that they kept reusing the same jokes over and over again. I watched the first episode of the animated series, and that was pretty awesome.